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Clearly, most investors would have been better off in passive ETF strategies, and plenty of money has flowed in that direction. The rise of exchange traded funds has vacuumed up a lot of money that heretofore might have flowed into actively managed domestic equity mutual funds, which the chart shown above on the right illustrates. Of course, significantly more money has come out of active U.S. equity funds than has flowed into passive ETFs, meaning that there has hardly been an abundance of enthusiasm for stocks.

Still, we respect that many folks are concerned about recent headlines about big inflows into stocks. For example, fund tracker EPFR Global said last week: "Developed Markets Equity Funds recorded their biggest weekly inflow since EPFR Global started tracking them in 4Q00 as investors, especially those with a US focus, responded to a growing conviction the US Federal Reserve would err on the side of caution when reviewing QE3 at its September meeting. US Equity Funds absorbed nearly $17 billion in fresh money during the week ending September 18. Actively managed funds saw modest inflows into Small and Mid-Cap Funds and a significant rotation among Large Cap Funds from those managed for growth to those managed with a value style. ETF flows, which accounted for the bulk of the money taken in, favored Large Cap ETFs in dollar terms and Small Cap ETFs in flows as a percentage of AUM terms. US Equity Funds remain firmly on course for the first full-year inflow since 2004."

That last sentence provides some significant perspective as it has been more than eight years since investors put more money into domestic stock mutual funds and equity ETFs than they took out. While we concede that the contrarian in us would rather see investors running away from stocks than running towards them, numbers from Morningstar show that for the 12 months ended August 2013, more than $31 billion fled U.S. stock funds while more than $140 billion flowed into taxable bond funds. We'd argue that it will take more than a couple of weeks of interest in equities to make up for some eight years of disinterest and we'll literally need months if not years of sustained inflows before worrying too much about the fools having rushed in. And the fact that everyone seems to be pointing to fund flows as a reason that the end is nigh for stocks might actually be viewed as a contrarian positive.

There has been evidence of enthusiasm in individual names though, specifically with perceived growth stocks. Companies such as (FB) have taken investors by storm as of late. I caution you, however, to tread carefully before being swept away by the current of the market, as it is important to stay grounded in performance measures and valuations as opposed to excitement and popularity.

Despite the short-term returns that growth stocks have offered, a look at the chart below illustrates that over a long-term time horizon, value stocks historically outperform their growth counterparts.

This isn’t to say that value-priced companies are necessarily better than growth companies, but rather to say that Facebook’s substantial rise over the previous few months has already priced in the potential for significant future top- and bottom-line growth, which makes the upside limited and the downside much greater at current price levels. Just six months ago, investors were fearful that Facebook was losing popularity, but were quick to forget this point when the company could prove its mobile strategy was gaining some traction. Of course, investors are now willing to pay in excess of 130 times what the company has earned in the previous 12-months and nearly 20 times trailing revenue in order to get a piece of the action.

A company such as (GLW), while much less coveted than Facebook, is much more attractive from a valuation standpoint. As the world leader in specialty glass and ceramics, Corning is involved in life sciences, telecommunications and environmental technologies, in addition to the manufacture of display technologies for all types of screens (TVs, monitors, etc.). With a strong balance sheet boasting $5.4 billion in cash and short-term investments versus $2.8 billion in long-term debt, revenue of almost $8 billion in the last 12 months and a solid 2.7% dividend yield, we think that Corning is the much wiser choice.

Additionally, seeing that accessing Facebook from any device requires some sort of screen, Corning has exposure to some of the same potential growth markets as Facebook, but the price tag is a whole lot cheaper, especially when one considers that GLW trades for less than 3 times revenue and 11.5 times trailing earnings!

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Opinions expressed are those of John Buckingham, chief investment officer of Al Frank Asset Management, Inc. (AFAM). a division of AFAM Capital, Inc., and are subject to change without notice and are not intended to be a forecast of future events, a guarantee of future results or investment advice.